Sophie Travis

Department: Molecular Biology
Faculty Adviser: Sabine Petry
Year of Study:
Undergraduate School: Brandeis University
Undergraduate Major: Biochemistry

Personal Bio

I fell in love with wet-lab research the summer before I started college. Since then, I have worked in various biochemistry and biology labs in biotech and in the university setting. I have been at Princeton since 2013, when I started my doctorate in the department of Molecular Biology. I am now a postdoctoral researcher getting ready to start my own research group. I grew up in the Boston area and would love to move back there if possible, but we'll see what happens! I also love to sing and have three adorable cats.

Fun Fact

Everyone in my immediate family has careers in computer science, and they are always horrified that I can't just "undo" an experiment if I make a mistake.

Research Pitch

The big question that my work seeks to answer is how cells reorganize their contents during cell division. As you learned in high school biology, over the course of only 90 minutes, cells completely remodel their interiors and create a dynamic structure called the spindle. Spindles are composed of thousands of microtubule filaments and pull apart the cell's DNA, ensuring that each daughter cell gets a complete copy of the genetic material. But how are these microtubule filaments created and moved around? I use electron microscopy to get extremely high resolution snapshots of microtubules and accessory factors, then use these snapshots to understand underlying cellular mechanisms. I am especially interested in how different types of eukaryotic cells—plants, fungi, intracellular parasites—use the same machinery to make different types of spindles, and how we can exploit those differences to, for example, develop novel antiparasitic compounds.

Upcoming Programs That I Am Attending:

Plans for Summer 2025

Interested in participating in Summer 2025 ReMatch+ program.